Cloud atlas.
Before he became a game designer full-time, Simon Oliver made interactive exhibits for museums. I think a little of that kind of thing may have rubbed off on Okabu. I'm not trying to taint his latest project by suggesting it's anything like a piece of educational software, but it has a sweet-natured environmental message and a rigorous logic to its challenges. Whatever your age, it wants to make you think. You play as a cloud, you'll spend a lot of time wondering how water's going to interact with other elements, and the whole thing, with its neat little fields, its puzzles about harvests and its creeping threat of industrialisation, comes across like an agrarian Super Mario World. Put that on the back of the box.
There won't be a box of course. Okabu is the first straight-up console title from Oliver's tiny HandCircus outfit - the micro-studio that made its name with the Rolando platformers for iOS - and it's appearing on PSN later this year. Like his previous offerings, Okabu's colourful and cheery, and it's been built by a handful of people (just five this time): a fact that makes its sprawling levels, its ingenious, race-tuned mini-games, and its playful, detail-rich hub worlds quietly astonishing.
As with Rolando, the visuals are being handled by the illustrator Mikko Walamies, but there's no danger that anyone's going to mistake Okabu for LocoRoco. Instead, this is a game where the comfortable chunkiness of the art complements a varied design and some inventive mechanics.
Source: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-07-19-okabu-preview
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